Wolf Hall Trilogy Series
Written by Hilary Mantel
Narrated by Ben Miles, Simon Slater and Simon Vance
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this series
"The many listeners enthralled by the earlier two volumes in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy will find all their expectations met in this final installment... Here is a narrative achievement of the highest order." — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner
This program is read by Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
*This program includes a bonus conversation between Ben Miles and Hilary Mantel*
“If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”
With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.
The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?
Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
"Miles’ familiarity with Mantel’s portrayal of Cromwell pervades his performance of The Mirror & the Light, which traces Cromwell’s fall from greatness, beginning with the aftermath of Anne Boleyn’s beheading and ending with his own.Miles’ voice carries the power-hungry statesman’s monumental final act with ease and a delicate nuance, as only someone with a deep understanding of the story could." - BookPage
"Ben Miles — Group Captain Peter Townsend in “The Crown” — has, in addition to narrating this final volume, taken on the massive task of delivering “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies,” as well. He also played Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “Wolf Hall Parts One & Two,” and captures again the man’s voice, its taint of baseness, its ups and downs and quiet ruthlessness." -- Washington Post
Hilary Mantel
HILARY MANTEL was the author of the bestselling novel Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, which both won the Booker Prize. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won world-wide critical acclaim. Mantel wrote seventeen celebrated books, including the memoir Giving Up the Ghost, and she was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize, the Costa Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize, and many other accolades. In 2014, Mantel was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She died at age seventy in 2022.
More audiobooks from Hilary Mantel
Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learning to Talk: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Wolf Hall Trilogy
Related audiobooks
The Adventure of the Priory School Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dead Letter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maison Tellier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Monument of French Folly (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeven Keys to Baldpate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Passage to India (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Fell Through the Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mayor of Central Park Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Places in the Dark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBarnaby Rudge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Is Time to a Pig? Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMonsieur Lecoq Part 1: The Inquiry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/57 to 12 - A Detective Story: And One Hour More Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Short Story Collection: Spooky, Mysterious Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chatham School Affair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tug-of-War: Quickreads Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Debba Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Case of the Missing Will Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot Quite a Genius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Weird Circle: The Murder of the Little Pig Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Afterward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Christmas Carol: By Charles Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNightmare Abbey: Unabridged Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Colonel Greatheart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Amiable Charlatan: Booktrack Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conan Doyle - Selected Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Renaissance Fiction For You
All the Queen's Spies: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Queen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Familiar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marvelous: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King's Curse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Boleyn Inheritance: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Queen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the End of a Dull Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Virgins of Venice: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Three Sisters, Three Queens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Queen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death of a Schoolgirl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Fool: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last White Rose: A Novel of Elizabeth of York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taming of the Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Residence: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poison Keeper: An enthralling historical novel of Renaissance Italy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Masterpiece: A Novel of World War II Italy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Eyes of the Queen: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master's Apprentice: A Retelling of the Faust Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death of a Gentleman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mists of Glen Strae: A Highland Romance of Tudor Scotland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Niccolò Rising Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Night Portrait: A Novel of World War II and da Vinci's Italy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stolen Lady: A Novel of WWII and the Mona Lisa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Unholy Mischief: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Christmas at Ferndean Manor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Virgin Earth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stolen Lady: A Novel of World War II and the Mona Lisa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Wolf Hall Trilogy
3,534 ratings0 reviews